Malcolm X Quotes

There are no right answers to wrong questions.

The very lack of evidence is thus treated as evidence; the absence of smoke proves that the fire is very carefully hidden...A belief in invisible cats cannot be logically disproved although it does tell us a good deal about those who hold it.

My greatest surprise was that so much of what we think is common sense is just prejudice, and so much of what we think is scientific fact is about as scientific as the idea that the sun revolves around the earth.

How many legs does a dog have if you call his tail a leg? Four. Saying that a tail is a leg doesn't make it a leg.

Those who use 'Correlation is not the same as causation' as a magic incantation to dismiss all fact-using professions are fools holding a lit match in one hand and an open gas can in the other, screaming, 'One has nothing to do with the other!'

Without evidence, anything goes. Think about it. Common sense says the sun goes round the Earth. Who agrees with me?

The grass is always greener on the other side - until you get there and see it's AstroTurf. Symbols are never reality. Someone might have amassed material success and fame, but that doesn't mean they're happy. So, don't go judging a person's life by the cover.

You can put a cat in an oven, but that don't make it a biscuit.

Things are NEVER what they seem, Pa, I thought. I used to think they were, but I was wrong or stupid or blind or something. Old folks are forever complaining about their failing eyesight, but I think your vision gets better as you get older. Mine surely was.

Cats mean kittens, plentiful and frequent.

If you like cats and have some, you get kittens; and if you like kittens and enjoy having them about, they grow up and you get more cats.

Managers thinking about accounting issues should never forget one of Abraham Lincoln's favorite riddles: How many legs does a dog have, if you call a tail a leg? The answer: Four, because calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.

Analogies are figures intended to serve as fatal weapons if they succeed, and as innocent toys if they fail.

False conclusions which have been reasoned out are infinitely worse than blind impulse.

Men are most apt to believe what they least understand.

But this isn't a perfect world. The problem is people who think it is. -Connor

... A rule of thinking which would absolutely prevent me from acknowledging certain kinds of truth if those ... truths were really there, would be an irrational rule.

If you can identify a delusional popular belief, you can find what lies hidden behind it: the contrarian truth.

So you see how endlessly futile and fruitless it would be if we wanted to refute their objections every time they obstinately resolved not to think through what they say but merely to speak, just so long as they contradict our arguments in any way they can.

I had ... come to an entirely erroneous conclusion, which shows, my dear Watson, how dangerous it always is to reason from insufficient data.

The problem with putting two and two together is that sometimes you get four, and sometimes you get twenty-two.

Rarely do we invest the time to open the book of another's life. When we do, we are usually surprised to find its cover so misleading and its reviews so flawed.

A fool, for example, thinks Shakespeare a great poet . . . yet the fool has never read Shakespeare.

Many things are not as they seem: The worst things in life never are.

Just because an idea is true doesn't mean it can be proved. And just because an idea can be proved doesn't mean it's true.